Dummy Run (Version I)

Today we had an unexpected hospital run. I woke up feeling really sick this morning, but no it wasn't me that needed the hospital trip this time. I did call in sick at work, but Tasha was the "patient" this time. She didn't sleep well last night and her back and side were quite painful. After speaking to the nurse on the phone, they recommended that Tasha went in for a check-over.
So we ran through our hospital run checklist, put the bags in the car and hit the road! When we got there (and after the obligatory uncomfortable and tedious wait in the waiting room), they hooked Tasha up to a monitoring machine, which monitored the baby's heartbeat and also monitored for any contractions. The machine fascinated the two of us and we listened to our baby's heartbeat throughout the length of our stay in the observation room.
What we didn't expect to see was spikes on the chart to show that Tasha was actually having mild contractions every 7 or 8 minutes!
To cut the story short, we're back home now and Tasha isn't in labour. The thing is, we don't really know what just happened! No-one gave us any real information, except that they will contact us with the results of a test to let Tasha know if it's any kind of infection.
While the whole experience was exciting, I must say I'm pretty disappointed at the lack of compassion and information we were given. They were very polite and never made us feel like we shouldn't have gone in (well they could hardly say that when they insisted we came) but we have no idea what happened! Do contractions just happen all the time? Are they just happening because of an infection? Is this the beginning of the final countdown contractions or will they subside?
Maybe I'm disappointed because I didn't come home with a baby, but it was a mega-high followed by a slight disappointment! On a positive note, the "test run" was successful and we realized that we're fairly well prepared for the next run. "Upgrades" for the next run include the paperwork we forgot this time, a dressing gown for Tasha, a jumper (Canadians and Americans, replace 'jumper' with 'sweater') for the bambino and more munchable snacks for me!